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The Making Of A Modern, Cloud-driven Loyalty Platform – From The Idea To The Final Product
- Published
- 7 min reading
Re-living The Eureka Moment
We are often told that, in the world of IT, nothing is impossible - it's just a matter of resources. The journey from the initial concept to the complete, cutting-edge product can be quite intense, and its overall success depends on many different factors. It all starts with a relatively simple idea - whether written on a napkin while drinking a cup of morning coffee or during an intense brainstorming session. But the idea by itself is just a starting point – later on, it has to be developed into a tangible form. That being said, we need to bear in mind that the best of plans may end up at the concept cemetery if the project is poorly supervised. The same rule applies when a rock-solid strategy is not established or if the technologies involved are outdated.
For us, creating a CRM class solution in the cloud version and making it part of the Comarch portfolio was not a question of how, but when. Having many years of experience in the field of loyalty management software, as well as the internal drive to follow the latest market trends, we made a team of loyalty professionals whose goal was to design and develop a loyalty platform that is currently known as Comarch Loyalty Cloud (CLC).
Comarch Loyalty Cloud owes a lot to its "older brother," Comarch Loyalty Management, a system designed to help large enterprises improve customer engagement. What makes Comarch Loyalty Cloud different from the enterprise version, however, is the technology, as well as the UI design, which was intentionally simplified to meet the latest market trends and maximize user’s convenience. At the same time, the CLC platform provides operational flexibility and diversity to creating business scenarios appreciated by the users of the traditional CLM system.
With CLC, our main technological goal was to deliver a robust, loyalty management system available in the software-as-a-service model. We wanted to give companies the chance to bypass the time-consuming implementation process and start working on their loyalty programs as soon as they log in to the platform, minimizing operational costs at the same time.
For us, creating a CRM class solution in the cloud version and making it part of the Comarch portfolio was not a question of how, but when. Having many years of experience in the field of loyalty management software, as well as the internal drive to follow the latest market trends, we made a team of loyalty professionals whose goal was to design and develop a loyalty platform that is currently known as Comarch Loyalty Cloud (CLC).
Comarch Loyalty Cloud owes a lot to its "older brother," Comarch Loyalty Management, a system designed to help large enterprises improve customer engagement. What makes Comarch Loyalty Cloud different from the enterprise version, however, is the technology, as well as the UI design, which was intentionally simplified to meet the latest market trends and maximize user’s convenience. At the same time, the CLC platform provides operational flexibility and diversity to creating business scenarios appreciated by the users of the traditional CLM system.
With CLC, our main technological goal was to deliver a robust, loyalty management system available in the software-as-a-service model. We wanted to give companies the chance to bypass the time-consuming implementation process and start working on their loyalty programs as soon as they log in to the platform, minimizing operational costs at the same time.
Some of our remaining objectives were:
- Creating a business user-centric platform; one that addresses individual needs through system configurations and the use of functional API (integration)
- Making the system available to a broader audience by eliminating the expenses of software licensing
- Providing innovation and guidance through complete open API to enable smooth integrations with third-party systems
- Delivering the shortest time to market; since the Cloud does not require a lengthy and resource-consuming implementation
Loyalty Running On Clouds
We started working on the CLC platform by performing full market analysis, as well as gathering feedback regarding CRM&Marketing products from our clients. Why? Because we knew that by focusing on technological concepts and functionalities that are most desired by our clients, we would be able to release a complete and highly efficient product. As a result, at its very core, Comarch Loyalty Cloud offers a set of advanced features that make it an essential tool in one’s marketing toolbox. Those include:
| Coupons & Rewards | Using the CLC platform, not only can you define physical rewards, but also vouchers, coupons, and discount codes - both for entire transactions and particular product purchase. The platform supports coupons issued as part of mass campaigns, promotions, though they are also available to customers in exchange for loyalty points. The coupons themselves can be utilized as cash or percentage discounts, or they can be used for collecting rewards. |
| Promotions | Our flexible promotion mechanism allows you to quickly react to specific examples of customer behavior by distributing not only points but also coupons, sending notifications (using multiple communication channels), offer product discounts. Plus, you can use the External Event feature that enables you to extend the list of members' behavior without limits and integrate any of the available data sources that can track specific member-performed actions. |
| Member management | Comarch Loyalty Cloud allows you to design and implement a registration plan that suits your business needs; that includes the possibility to build member-gets-member promotions. As a user, you can independently configure each of the following areas: login settings, member attributes, member consents, password policy, identifiers management, household restrictions, enrollment restrictions, and more. |
| Personalization | Comarch Loyalty Cloud enables you to build specific segments and use them to drive various customer interactions. You can quickly identify your customers and divide them into smaller groups based on characteristics such as personal information, time spend shopping, transactional behavior, and more. |
The second part of our journey designing the CLC system was focused more on creating mechanisms for driving unique customer stories and top customer experience. Here’s where the world of high tech had to meet the needs of the business environment. Thus, we developed a brand-new approach - the one where a user does not have to be familiar with any technology-related issues, where their main concern is the clients’ wellbeing. Comarch Loyalty Cloud’s sole propose is to increase the effectiveness of customer engagement processes. This is why we have spent a lot of time designing a simple and intuitive interface for running quite complicated loyalty processes.
What is more, we wanted CLC to be in line with the highest security standards of the SaaS model. Since Comarch has a global network of Data Centers (Poland, Canada, USA, UAE, and more), we decided to use our own infrastructure. Being independent of third-party cloud providers allows us to deliver a product of a more competitive price. Not to mention that our applications are based on open source solutions such as Kubernetes or Docker – which also makes a huge difference.
Also, the Apache Kafka message broker and the rest API (described in the OpenAPI standard) were applied to facilitate further product development and create a service bus for fast and easy integrations with internal and external systems. Our plan for the upcoming months is to launch full integration with a set of microservices that allow connecting Comarch Loyalty Cloud with mobile payments applications, location-based services, and gamification mechanisms.
Also, the Apache Kafka message broker and the rest API (described in the OpenAPI standard) were applied to facilitate further product development and create a service bus for fast and easy integrations with internal and external systems. Our plan for the upcoming months is to launch full integration with a set of microservices that allow connecting Comarch Loyalty Cloud with mobile payments applications, location-based services, and gamification mechanisms.
More Than A Cloud
Every CLC user gets the so-called basic IT support from our side that guarantees top system performance. The team that provides this service consists of Comarch specialists that are both highly-experienced loyalty professionals and top IT engineers. With their help, making the CLC system part of one’s infrastructure is like a walk in the park. To help you gain a competitive advantage, we also provide additional business and technical assistance services, also known as Premium Technical and Business Support, that can help you drive better business results in many different areas - ranging from consulting and marketing to integration and advanced security testing.
Though the launch of the CLC platform can be considered the last stop of our journey, our work is far from over. We intend to expand the functionality of the system with features introduced by free upgrades, as well as new modules available in the form of paid extensions.
Comarch Loyalty Cloud will grow to set new trends on the cloud solutions market. Thus, due to the on-going digital revolution, not only will it be our mission to adapt the system to the latest business and technical requirements, but also to exceed them.
Visit our official website to learn more about Comarch Loyalty Cloud and sign up for FREE CLC Demo.
